An exegesis submitted to University of Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art and Design (MA&D)

School of Art and Design

2014

Hannah Alleyne

TRAVERSING MEMORY: THE LAST DAYS OF THE OLD related outcomes. Firstly, the piece will attempt to stimulate recol- Abstract lections of the area, strengthening both individual and collective memory pathways, fostering old and new memories. Secondly, We rely very heavily on things, environments, or people exter- the installation intends to illustrate the temporality of both built nal from ourselves to preserve our own memories. Mnemonic structures and memory. reminders, whether they are visual, aural, olfactory, or tactile, rein- force our memories, strengthening neural pathways. The removal of reminders through the destruction or disintegration of an environment that might have scaffolded mental processing could very likely cause the destruction or disintegration of the memo- ries themselves.

In his book, Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape, Professor Marc Treib argues that built structures both hold and project memories.1 Pieces of architecture and infrastructure become repositories into which both deposits and withdrawals can be made. Treib sees the built environment as a memory bank for both individual and communal use.

Auckland city’s Old Mangere Bridge, in the , is a mnemonic device that offers communities, as well as individu- als, an opportunity to recall and preserve memories of the area. As the bridge falls into disrepair and faces demolition, associated memories for communities and generations of people could well be lost.

This thesis offers a spatial intervention that attempts to foster and retain memories long after the old bridge is gone. Through an iterative drawing practice and the collection of both individual and community memories of the Old Mangere Bridge, I intend to construct a site-specific spatial provocation with two memory

1 Marc Treib, “Yes, Now I Remember: An Introduction,” in Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape (New York; London: Routledge, 2009), x–xv.

v Table of Contents List of Figures

Abstract iv Figure I-1 Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1982. Gabbro rock. Reproduced from Steve Tatum, Flickr, https://flic.kr/p/8j883y List of Figures vii (accessed 15 March 2015).

Acknowledgements xiv Figure I-2 Daniel Libeskind, Holocaust Tower, Jewish Museum, Berlin, 2001. Reproduced from Stefan-Xp, “Holocaustturm im Introduction 1 Jüdischen Museum innenansicht” Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ Chapter 1. 9 Holocaustturm_im_J%C3%BCdischen_Museum_innenansicht. Repeating Connections: The History of the jpg#/media/File:Holocaustturm_im_J%C3%BCdischen_Museum_ Old Mangere Bridge innenansicht.jpg. (accessed 15 March 2015).

Chapter 2. 21 Figure 1-1 Hannah Alleyne, Reproduction of George John’s Collecting Stories drawing of Uringutu and Ngaoho pa sites surrounding Manukau Harbour in early 18th century, 2013. Multiple media. Chapter 3. 35 Drawing A Mnemonic Device Figure 1-2 John (Dr) Johnson and Eliza Ann Hobson, The Ware of Te Whero Whero, Chief of the Waikato, Onahonga, 1843. Black ink Conclusion 74 and wash, 45mm x 80mm. Reproduced from Alexander Turnbull Library, Ref: E-216-f-174-1, http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23118280 Addendum 78 (accessed 25 May 2014).

Bibliography 84 Figure 1-3 Edward Ashworth, Oneunga Beach, Manukao Harbour, , 1843. Pen and ink, 151mm x 155mm. Appendix A: Ethics Approval 89 Reproduced from Alexander Turnbull Library, Ref: A-208-001, http:// mp.natlib.govt.nz/detail/?id=12526 (accessed 29 April 2014). Appendix B: Shared Stories and Correspondence 90 Figure 1-4 James Stewart, and Mangare sic Bridge, 1866. Manuscript map, 700mm x 1330mm. Reproduced from Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, NZ Map 1155, http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz (accessed 29 April 2014).

vi vii Figure 1-5 James D Richardson, Looking South from just West Figure 3-1 Hannah Alleyne, Mangere Mountain from Onehunga of Mangere Bridge showing Mangere...., c1914. Glass plate negative. in 1875, 2013. Graphite on paper, 297mm x 210mm.. Reproduced from Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, Ref: 4-8647, http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz (accessed Figure 3-2 Hannah Alleyne, Mangere Mountain from Onehunga 29 April 2014). in 2013, 2013. Graphite on paper, 297mm x 210mm.

Figure 1-6 W T Wilson, Opening the Second Bridge, 31 May Figure 3-3 Hannah Alleyne, View along the first Mangere Bridge 1915. Photograph. Reproduced from Manukau Research Library, towards Mangere in 1913, 2013. Graphite on paper, 297mm x Ref: MGE: I, 3, no. 27, Footprints 01132, http://manukau.infospecs. 210mm. co.nz (accessed 29 April 2014). Figure 3-4 Hannah Alleyne, View along the Old Mangere Bridge Figure 1-7 Photographer unknown, The Bridge Over Troubled towards Mangere in 2013, 2013. Graphite on paper, 297mm x Water, May 1980. Black and white photograph, 140mm x 210mm.. 210mm. Reproduced from Manukau Research Library, Courier collection, box 9/22, Ref: Footprints 00280, http://manukau.infospecs.co.nz Figure 3-5 Hannah Alleyne, Mangere Motorway Bridge in 1980, (accessed 29 April 2014). 2013. Graphite on paper, 297mm x 210mm.

Figure 1-8 Photographer unknown, Old Mangere bridge ca Figure 3-6 Hannah Alleyne, Mangere Motorway Bridge in 2013, 1980, c1980. Black and white photograph, 130mm x 180mm. 2013. Graphite on paper, 297mm x 210mm. Reproduced from Manukau Research Library, MGE: I, 3, no. 54, Ref: Footprints 01142, http://manukau.infospecs.co.nz (accessed Figure 3-7 Julianna Satchell-Deo, Hannah Alleyne drawing large- 29 April 2014). scale project image, 2013. Digital photograph.

Figure 1-9 Hannah Alleyne, North-west detail of Old Mangere Figure 3-8 Hannah Alleyne, Old Mangere Bridge with Bailey Bridge, 2014. Digital photograph. Bridge in 1980, 2013. Graphite on paper, 1240mm x 840mm.

Figure 1-10 Hannah Alleyne, Mangere Bridge highlighed within Figure 3-9 Hannah Alleyne, Looking south along the Old surrounding Auckland Local Boards, 2013. Multiple media. Mangere Bridge in 2013, 2013. Graphite on paper, 1440mm x 840mm. Figure 2-1 Hannah Alleyne, Page from Guest Book, 2013-2014. Pencil and ink on paper, 297mm x 150mm.. Figure 3-10 Hannah Alleyne, Old Mangere Bridge from Onehunga Wharf in 1945, 2013. Graphite on paper, 1235mm x 840mm. Figure 2-2 Helen de Faria-Johns, Hannah Alleyne hanging memory-collection posters, 2014. Digital photograph.

viii ix Figure 3-11 Hannah Alleyne, Old Mangere Bridge from under Figure 3-22 Hannah Alleyne, Aerial view of relationship between the new Mangere Motorway Bridge in 2013, 2013. Graphite on mangroves and between Mangere Bridges, 2014. Graphite on paper, paper, 1505mm x 840mm. 420mm x 297mm.

Figure 3-12 Hannah Alleyne, The first Mangere Bridge in 1913, Figure 3-23 Hannah Alleyne, A child’s view in 1978 from the 2013. Graphite on paper, 1220mm x 840mm. Old Mangere Bridge, 2014. Graphite on paper, 420mm x 297mm.

Figure 3-13 Hannah Alleyne, Looking toward Onehunga Wharf Figure 3-24 Hannah Alleyne, Drawing on Old Mangere Bridge, across the Old Mangere Bridge in 2013, 2013. Graphite on paper, 2014. Charcoal on concrete. 1265mm x 840mm. Figure 3-25 Hannah Alleyne, Detail of drawing on Old Mangere Figure 3-14 & 3-15 Rietveld Landscapes, Pretty Vacant, Bridge, 2014. Charcoal on concrete. 2013. Foam. Reproduced from Dezeen, http://www.dezeen. com/2013/05/28/pretty-vacant-by-rietveld-landscape/ (accessed Figure 3-26 Hannah Alleyne, Drawing on Old Mangere Bridge, 20 August 2013) 2014. Chalk on concrete.

Figure 3-16 & 3-17 Chad Wright, Master Plan, 2013. Sand. Figure 3-27 Hannah Alleyne, Detail of drawing on Old Mangere Reproduced from Dezeen, http://www.dezeen.com/2013/06/20/ Bridge, 2014. Chalk on concrete. master-plan-sandcastles-by-chad-wright/ (accessed 20 August 2013) Figure 3-28 & 3-29 Hannah Alleyne, Drawing into concrete, 2013. Concrete, 300 x 300mm. Figure 3-18 & 3-19 Tokujin Yoshioka, The Snow, 2010. Feathers and glass. Reproduced from Dezeen, http://www.dezeen. Figure 3-30 Hannah Alleyne, Preserved objects, 2014. Found com/2010/07/26/the-snow-by-tokujin-yoshioka/ (accessed 20 objects, resin, glass, 70 x 15mm each. August 2013) Figure 3-31 & 3-32 Hannah Alleyne, Conceptual drawings, 2014. Figure 3-20 Hannah Alleyne, Prevailing sou’wester over harbour, Multimedia. land, and Mangere Bridges, 2014. Graphite on paper, 420mm x 297mm. Figure 3-33 Hannah Alleyne, Initial testing of copper as a suit- able material for installation, 2014. Copper, 117mm diameter. Figure 3-21 Hannah Alleyne, Aerial view of mangroves between Mangere Bridges, 2014. Graphite on paper, 420mm x 297mm. Figure 3-34 & 3-35 Hannah Alleyne, Initial testing of copper as a suitable material for installation, 2014. Copper, 165mm diameter.

x xi Figure 3-36 & 3-37 Hannah Alleyne, Test drawings with heat, I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, 2014. Copper, 350mm diameter. to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person (except where Figure 3-38 to 3-41 Hannah Alleyne, Material testing in situ, explicitly defined in the acknowledgements), nor material which 2014. Copper. to a substantial extent has been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a university or other institution of Figure 3-42 to 3-53 Hannah Alleyne, Conceptual drawing, 2014. higher learning. Pencil and ink on paper, 210mm x 297mm.

Figure A-1 to A3 Hannah Alleyne, Traversing Memory, 2014. Brass. 6 October 2014

xii xiii Dr Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop and other staff and students from the Acknowledgements Pasifika Writing Retreats, you accepted me into your group and gave me permission to write with my own voice. Fa’afetai tele. Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisors and mentors Dr Susan Hedges, Dr Janine Randerson, and Carl Doulgas. Sue, I am so Thank you to my fellow students who have sat through my crits grateful and indebted to you for your extraordinary supervision and provided me with feedback. A special thank you to Nina Tapu and support. Your encouragement, patience, and enthusiasm has for your wonderful story and an extra special thank you to Juliana seen me through what I thought, at times, was an impossible task. Satchell-Deo who has been with me this whole way through. Carl, thank you. The guidance you’ve provided since my move to AUT has been invaluable. Janine, your invitation to contribute to Thank you, Gregory Heap, for convincing me I could do this. Other Waters: Art on the Manukau as part of a Masters degree has Thank you, Mum and Dad, for letting me know you’re proud of given me a belief in my own ability that I did not previously have. me. Thank you, Helly my sissa, for your help hanging posters on a very windy bridge and your words of encouragement. Thank you, I would like to acknowledge the Iwi that are kaitiaki to the Manukau Kat Teirney, for your ideas, enthusiasm, wine, and proofreading skills. Harbour. Ngāti Maru, Ngati Paoa, Ngāti Tamaoho, Ngāti Tamaterā, Ngāti Te Ata, Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Whanaunga, Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Iris, my beautiful daughter, thank you for your patience and for Whātua o Ōrākei, Te Ākitai Waiohua, Te Kawerau a Maki, and believing in me. Waikato. I acknowledge these Iwi as tangata whenua and thank them for their stories. I would especially like to thank Ngawhata And Wayne, my amazing husband, a million thank yous. You are Atahinga Haimona Tukua for his help and wisdom and Dr Ann my strength. McEwan for her research into the history of the . Tēnā rawa atu koe.

My gratitude to all those who took the time to share their memo- ries of the Old Mangere Bridge with me. Thank you to everybody who left me a message on a poster, who emailed me, who offered to share your memories with me, who wrote in my guestbook, and especially to those who shared oral histories with me. George Shaw, Janet Presland, Ropata Selwyn, Valerie Payne, and Wayne Knox – the time you took to share your memories and thoughts with me made all the difference.

The artists and designers of Other Waters, thank you all for including me in the exhibition. I feel privileged to stand among you.

xiv xv Introduction

For many the Old Mangere Bridge is a destination, a place to sit and fish, to be with whanau or to be on one’s own. It is a place where memories are formed and where those memories are refreshed and recollected. Author Margaret Mahy writes in her short story, ‘The Bridge Builder’,

… people thought bridges were designed specially for cars, mere pieces of road stuck up on legs of iron or concrete, whereas my father thought bridges were the connections that would hold everything together.1

‘The Bridge Builder’ sees bridges as more than a way between places. Without them the world would fall apart, they are equally connectors and a destination. As a child, the Old Mangere Bridge was certainly a connector for me.

When I was five-years-old, and my sister just turned one, my parents separated. My sister and I moved with our mother to Te Atatu North and our father moved to Mangere. Every weekend our father would pick us up in his black Vauxhall, drive us to his house in Mangere, and then drive us back to Te Atatu.

Every weekend we slowly drove over the old Mangere Bridge. Already over sixty years old, it seemed to disintegrate beneath us. Every weekend there was a traffic jam on this bridge as people travelled to the still new Mangere Airport.

The three of us, my father, my sister, and I, sat in the car – one of those 33,000 that yearly used the bridge – sweltering in the

1 Margaret Mahy, “The Bridge Builder,” in The Door in the Air and Other Stories (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1988), 26. xvi 1 summer, freezing in the winter, watching a new motorway bridge … memory is one of the most significant aspects of our being built alongside. Then we sat in the car, sweltering in the humanity, not because of its instrumentality as signifier, or summer, freezing in the winter, watching a new motorway bridge because it is a sacred object, but because memory and not being built as industrial action stopped construction. We being human are functionally coterminous and defining of would sit there, the three of us, and Dad would tell us about our significance.2 when I was born “just over there in Normans Hill Road” and about how things used to be and about how great things would In many respects, it is memory that makes us human. It is memo- be once the motorway bridge was completed, about how close ries that identify us as individuals making us each unique and we would be again. extraordinary.

Looking back, the bridge seems such an important physical mani- Each unique and extraordinary memory of a time or place is kept festation of what was happening in my life. Here was a bridge, the or lost depending on the strength of related neural pathways connection between my parents, the link between the two most already in place. The stronger the existing pathways, the greater important things in my life, and it was disintegrating. the chance a new memory will be formed and retained. Clinical psychologist Amanda Barnier’s research into shared memory By the time the new motorway bridge opened, and the old bridge showed that the retelling of a memory, with people who share was closed, my father had moved back to his hometown of New a common experience, increases the strength of the memory Plymouth. Our close connection had been lost. for both the narrator and the audience, further augmenting its integrity and continuity. Our connection was never completely broken but every time I see the old bridge my mind wanders back to the time when The preservation of our memories lose their scaffolding, not I was five. I’m reminded of the time I had with my father and only when we are taken from our known environment, but also the time I lost. In this light the bridge acts as a mnemonic device when our environment is taken from us. The effect however is for the memories associated with my parents’ divorce and my exaggerated because the environment may be lost for dozens, separation from my father. Sitting back from the emotion of hundreds, or even thousands of people. When an environment is these memories, I find the connection between these memory changed we run the risk of many people losing their memories. structures and the built structure fascinating. With no intention by either the structure or myself, the Old Mangere Bridge has We rely heavily on people, environments, or objects external to become a repository for my memories. ourselves to preserve our own memories. Likewise, the destruc- tion or disintegration of an environment that might have scaffolded Literary theorist, Djelal Kadir, sees the ability to form complex mental processing will very likely cause the destruction or disin- memory structures, as one of the most important differentiators tegration of the memories themselves. The Old Mangere Bridge between us, as human, and other animal species. 2 Djelal Kadir, “Memories of the Future,” in Memos from the Besieged City: Lifelines for Cultural Sustainability (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2011), 107.

2 3 [fig I-1] Maya Lin, Vietnam is such a scaffold; helping us to recollect our past and to preserve Veterans Memorial, the memories of it. 1982. Gabbro rock.. Kadir discusses this idea in depth in Memories of the Future where he notes that not only are memory and culture linked by time and place but that our culture is defined by what we remember as well as by what we forget. He writes,

Our perpetual amnesia constructs its own future … through a subtractive process predicated on what is suppressed, repressed, overlooked, skewed, spun, or erased.3

Social memory is held by a society’s architecture. If the architecture is preserved, so may a society’s collective memories. Kadir sug- gests that where a society’s physical works are not preserved, nor will its memory be. In this light every culture’s identity is formed by the buildings and writings history has preserved as well as by those things that have been forgotten.

Looking at previous memory works, there is a multitude that focus on both individual and collective memories. Memorials, like those created by Daniel Libeskind or Maya Lin help us remember groups of people. [figs I-1 & I-2] Their works, whilst helping us recall collective memories, are designed to touch us as individu- als and help us understand that it is individual people, each with their own story, that are worthy of remembering.

Or as architect, Juhani Pallasmaa, put more succinctly in Space, Place, Memory, and Imagination, these works,

[fig 1-2] Daniel Libeskind, Holocaust Tower, Jewish Museum, Berlin, 2001. Concrete and light. 3 Kadir, “Memories of the Future,” 88.

4 5 ... are deliberately conceived and built for the purpose of contained within its form, and every time we see it the recollec- preserving and evoking memories and specific emotions.4 tions are projected back to us.

Pallasmaa goes on to say that beyond memorials, the built struc- Seeing the old bridge, smelling it, feeling it, stimulates us to ture serves as a mnemonic device in three ways. Firstly, the built remember and to imagine. Just as the taste of madeleine brought structure materialises the course of time. It projects time and memories flooding back to Proust the bridge evokes similar makes it visible. Secondly, built structures concretise recollection responses.7 One glance at the Old Mangere Bridge and I remem- by projecting and containing memories. Thirdly, built structures ber my father, the special time with him, the loss and confusion inspire us; they stimulate us to remember and to imagine.5 I felt, and I once again imagine what could have been. Whilst the persistence of objects or of built space are important for social The Old Mangere Bridge offers a materialisation of the course and personal identification, they are not wholly necessary as of time illustrated by its age and the materials used. by its visible mnemonic devices. We do not forget someone or something decay and disintegration. It narrates a story of cultural change once they are absent – photographs, writings, and mnemonic and changing technologies as it sits alongside the newer, faster installations such as memorials all help us to remember. Mangere Bridge, contrasting and illustrating what we now see as important. The old bridge was an exemplar of what we were Chapter One will set the scene by outlining the history of the capable of a century ago – today the differences between the Mangere Bridge, the surrounding area, and the people of its bridges are material proof of the course of time. whenua, from the early 18th century. Even then the area was an important connector between iwi and the harbours as a place Nonetheless, time is not memory, however closely linked they are. of sustenance and commerce. Memories are contained within and projected by the bridge, not because of its age, but because people experienced phenomena Chapter Two will discuss how I have discovered the bridge as a strong enough to remember. Because of the plasticity, fluidity, and mnemonic device for the local communities and myself. Through flexibility of our brains we need to rely on things outside ourselves a bricolage approach to data collection, stories have been col- to keep the past in order. In The Extended Mind, authors Andy lected through onsite conversations, a guest book for anonymous Clark and David J Chalmers argue that we very often reach to storytelling, social media, a community engagement project, and a objects or people outside of ourselves to help us remember. 6 collection of oral histories. This chapter will outline that memory The Old Mangere Bridge is such an object; our memories are collection.

Chapter Three will consider precedent and describe the built 4 Juhani Pallasmaa, “Space, Place, Memory, and Imagination: The Temporal response I have made, explaining how my intervention will pro- Dimension of Existential Space,” in Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape (New York; London: Routledge, 2009), 19. vide both a mnemonic device and a space to foster memories. 5 Pallasmaa, 16–41. 6 Andy Clark and David J Chalmers, “The Extended Mind,” in The Extended 7 Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, Everyman’s Library 250 (London: Mind, ed. Richard Menary (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010), 27–42. Everyman, 2001).

6 7 Finally, the conclusion will attempt to provoke further questions and forecast how my spatial response will look in the future. Chapter 1 Suggestions on how I believe the Old Mangere Bridge’s replace- ment could incorporate a mnemonic intervention to further foster Repeating Connections: memory will also be included. This exegesis document’s ongoing work and documentation of the final work will be inserted after The History of the examination. Old Mangere Bridge Each person, given the same phenomena, will register a different memory. The same space is recreated infinitely through different When I think about what’s special about [the bridge] I can’t memories and stories. This exegesis will retell some of those separate that from what’s special about the area. And I stories but principally it will outline the path I took to foster mem- think of all the kind of significant things that have occurred ories of the Old Mangere Bridge in a narrative format. Traversing in the area and that basically are stories of my ancestors Memory does not sit easily within any defined discipline. This is and that’s been an important way of me being able to con- not a landscape architecture, psychological, philosophical, or social nect with the area, to know those stories.1 history piece of work, although it does include material and argu- ments from all these disciplines. The Manukau Harbour has been a place of sustenance, commerce, and transport for hundreds of years. The history of the area, its The aim of this thesis is to investigate how spatial design can foster people, and their connections across the harbour is a continuing and retain memories. My intention is to construct a site-specific story. Today two bridges span the Manukau Harbour, a motor- work that will: stimulate remembrances of the area; strengthen way bridge and a ferro-concrete bridge, connecting surrounding both individual and collective memory pathways; and foster both communities. Over the last hundred years the bridge has had old and newly constructed memories. many iterations, each tells a different story and each story holds true for that storyteller.2 What follows is my contribution to the This installation piece, whilst mostly embedded within the practice archive of these stories. of mnemonic spatial design, has been led by an iterative method- ology, letting the stories lead the design rather than following a Twelve iwi (Ngāti Maru, Ngati Paoa, Ngāti Tamaoho, Ngāti Tamaterā, any discipline’s prescribed approach. There is currently only one Ngāti Te Ata, Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Whanaunga, Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Old Mangere Bridge, yet every person’s memory of the bridge Whātua o Ōrākei, Te Ākitai Waiohua, Te Kawerau a Maki, and has recreated the same space in different ways. The same bridge has so many different realities. Every person who has shared a 1 Wayne Knox, interview by Hannah Alleyne, digital recording, February 17, story about the bridge has created a new way for us to view the 2014, Auckland Libraries. space. My role has been to create a way to illustrate the iterations 2 Rosemary Du Plessis and Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop, “The Ethics of Knowledge in a way that honours those who have created them. This is the Production - Pacific Challenges.,”International Social Science Journal 60, no. 195 story of how I did that. (2009): 109–14.

8 9 [fig. 1-1] Hannah Alleyne, After a series of attacks that allowed Te Waiohua to occupy the Reproduction of George significant sites surrounding the Manukau, Te Taou retaliated in John’s drawing of 1741 and the people of Te Waiohua were defeated. They lost not Uringutu and Ngaoho pa sites surrounding only the Maungakiekie Pa, it’s surrounding pa, and Mangere but Manukau Harbour in also Kiwi Tamaki. Further battles between Te Waiohua and Ngati early 18th century, Whatua very nearly decimated the whole Te Waiohua population. 2013. Multiple media. Eventually the fighting relented and the second half of the 18th century was comparatively peaceful.

Te Tō Waka, the portage route between Manukau and Tamaki River was the most frequently used in New Zealand during the early 19th century, and therefore, a highly desirable area.5 In 1823, Nga Puhi, led by Hongi Hika, used this route on their way to war in Waikato. Nga Puhi did not pass through the area peacefully and after several raids the Manukau iwi decided to unite against Nga Puhi. Hoping to put an end to twelve years of war, the united Manukau iwi, Te Akitai, Te Taou, and Ngati Te Ata followed Nga Puhi north and in 1832 returned home triumphant.

This stratagem, while effective in defeating Nga Puhi, had left Waikato) are kaitiaki to the Manukau Harbour.3 Each has a close the Manukau iwi open to attack from the south and by 1835 Te relationship with the moana predating European settlement.4 Wherowhero had control of huge areas of land, including the entire Manukau isthmus from Awhitu to Onehunga and beyond. In the early 18th century the Te Waiohua iwi, led by Kiwi Tamaki, had pa at a number of sites in Tāmaki Makaurau, including Te Wherowhero allowed Ngati Te Ata to return to Awhitu, Maungakiekie, Mangere, and Onehunga [fig. 1-1]. Tamaoho to return to Pehiakura, and Te Akitai to return to Pukaki. Te Wherowhero, himself, took up permanent residence in Onehunga where he and Ngati Te Ata held cultivated land. [fig. 1-2]

3 “TKM | Tāmaki | Te Kahui Mangai,” accessed May 12, 2013, http://www.tkm. govt.nz/region/tamaki/. 4 Ann McEwan, Proposed Onehunga Foreshore Reclamation Project, Cultural Impact Assessment (Ngati Te Ata, Te Akitai, and Ngati Tamaoho, 2011), https:// 5 New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu Taonga, “The www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/SiteCollectionDocuments/aboutcouncil/hearings/ Canoes of Tāmaki,” Web page, accessed August 17, 2013, http://www.teara. hearingrptonehungaforeshoreatt1420111213.pdf. govt.nz/en/tamaki-tribes/page-2.

10 11 [fig. 1-2] John (Dr) Johnson Whilst the Tamaki iwi were returning to the Manukau, Waikato and Eliza Ann Hobson, iwi were bringing produce, mainly wheat and flour, to the Tāmaki The Ware of Te Whero Makaurau markets via Te Tō Waka portage. It was around this Whero, Chief of the Waikato, Onahonga, time that Pakeha began exploring the area, exploiting the area’s 1843. Black ink and timber resources, and establishing Onehunga as a colonial settle- wash, 45 x 80mm. ment by alienating land from native title. Alexander Turnbull Library. Through all these changes, the beach at Onehunga continued to be an important transport and trading hub. [fig. 1-3] A commercial town developed on the waterfront and, in 1847, Onehunga was made New Zealand’s first fencible settlement.6

In 1849 a fire destroyed most of the buildings on the waterfront, moving the commercial focus to Princes Street. But the beach area was still very busy with over 500 waka landing per year.7

Traffic continued to increase between Mangere and Onehunga. Waka, rowboats, and ferries were all being used to cross the harbour. There are stories that local iwi may even have built a [fig. 1-3] connection of stepping-stones that could be used at low tide. Waka docked at Onehunga Beach, illustrating the importance of the area These connectors were all dependent on good weather, however as a trading centre. a more permanent solution was needed. Edward Ashworth, Oneunga Beach, Manukao Harbour, New Zealand, 1843. Pen and ink, 151 x 155mm. Alexander Turnbull Library. In 1866 a company was formed for the purpose of connecting Mangere and Onehunga leading to the conception of the first Mangere Bridge. [fig. 1-4] Eight years later, in 1874, the government authorised the Public Works Department to start construction and in 1875 the bridge was opened. It was narrow and hazardous to cross during stormy weather and within two years the bridge’s

6 Fencible settlements were stations of retired British and Irish soldiers, in military reserve, established to protect early settlers in fledgling New Zealand towns. 7 Dick Scott, Fire on the Clay: The Pakeha Comes to West Auckland (Auckland: Southern Cross, 1979), 10.

12 13 [fig. 1-5] James D Richardson, Old Mangere Bridge under construction, c1914. Glass plate negative. Sir George Grey Special Collections.

[fig. 1-4] Initial plan and section of proposed Mangere Bridge. James Stewart, Onehunga and Mangare sic Bridge, 1866. Manuscript map, 700 x 1330mm. George Grey Special Collections. . supporting piles were under attack by shipworm.8 By 1910 more than 30 piles had been replaced on the 20-pile bridge and by 1914, forty years after its construction, the bridge was declared unsafe.9

A new ferro-concrete bridge was constructed and it spanned a total of 246 metres in length with each span resting on four reinforced-concrete piles.10 [fig. 1-5] Constructed quickly the new

8 Untold Stories of Onehunga (Papakura, N.Z: N. Borchard, 2004), 34. 9 Mike Lancaster and John La Roche, “Mangere Bridge,” in Evolving Auckland: The City’s Engineering Heritage, ed. John La Roche (Christchurch, N.Z: Wily Publications, 2011), 161–65. [fig. 1-6] 10 In Concrete Planet (New York: Prometheus Books, 2011) Robert Courland WT Wilson, Opening describes how the Ferro-Concrete Construction Company had, just ten years the Second Bridge, 31 earlier, completed Cincinnati Ohio’s Ingalls Building. The 16-story building May 1915. Photograph, was the world’s first reinforced concrete skyscraper. The company used their Manukau Research newly patented reinforced concrete construction methods including rebar and Library..

14 15 Mangere Bridge opened on the 31st of May 1915 [fig. 1-6] This Work began on the new bridge in July 1974. Wilkins and Davies bridge would not succumb to shipworm; this Mangere Bridge Construction won the contract and completion was planned for was intended to last. mid-1978. By late 1976 on-going industrial relation issues had reached an impasse and work on the bridge stopped. [fig. 1-7] By 1921, just six years after its construction, the stone facing on the Mangere approach was showing signs of damage after strong The second Mangere Bridge was under further pressure and in gales and high tides.11 The damage soon extended to the bridge 1980 a Bailey bridge was constructed over the most deteriorated itself but the various parties involved were not able to agree on section of the bridge in order for the connection to continue who should pay for the maintenance of the bridge. The next year delivering 33,000 vehicles a day across the harbour.14 [fig. 1-8] the Mangere Bridge Commission was formed as a mitigation of the on-going division between Councils. The Commission’s first Fletcher Construction won the contract to continue work on undertaking was to tally the amount of traffic using the bridge.12 the motorway bridge and whilst there were some further small By 1925 concrete on the bridge was flaking away leaving the delays in construction (due to underestimating the amount of reinforcing rods exposed. Funding for repairs and maintenance work needed to resuscitate the project) the new Mangere Bridge continued to be an issue at Council and Commission meetings was completed and opened in February 1983. for decades to come. There was always work to be done but little consensus on who should fund the work. Agreement was Today, as the old bridge reaches its centenary, the on-going main- found however, in 1939, to build a shelter shed, halfway across, tenance costs have become unsustainable. The structural condition for pedestrians.13 of the bridge is deteriorating rapidly and it is believed that it will not be able to provide safe access for more than another five Traffic flow kept increasing and with the opening of the new years.15 [fig. 1-9] Construction of the replacement bridge will Mangere Airport in 1966 it was decided that a motorway bridge start early 2015 with plans to open the newest Mangere Bridge needed to be constructed. in 2016 – just one year after the old bridge’s centenary.16

During its 100 years, the bridge has become a destination in itself. It is a link between two geographic communities and a link cement mixers. (Robert Courland, Concrete Planet: The Strange and Fascinating with the water it spans, a mnemonic connection with our past Story of the World’s Most Common Man-Made Material (New York: Prometheus Books, 2011), 232.) 14 A Bailey bridge is a prefabricated, portable, truss bridge first developed 11 “The Mangere Bridge,” New Zealand Herald, August 10, 1921, Papers Past. by the Royal Engineers during WWII. 12 “Mangere Bridge Commission,” Auckland Star, January 31, 1922, Papers 15 Opus International Consultants Ltd, Old Mangere Bridge Replacement. Past. Community Engagement Report. September 2012, October 17, 2012, http:// 13 “Pedestrian* Who Frequently „«e Mangere Bridge Will Be Pleased To See www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/old-mangere-bridge/docs/community-engagement- That Half-Way Across A Shelter Shed Is Being Built.,” Auckland Star, August report.pdf. 25, 1939, Papers Past.4,27]]}}}],”schema”:”https://github.com/citation-style- 16 “Old Mangere Bridge,” NZ Transport Agency, n.d., http://www.nzta.govt. language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json”} nz/projects/old-mangere-bridge/.

16 17 [fig. 1-7] [fig. 1-9] Photographer North-west detail of Old unknown, The Bridge Mangere Bridge, 2014. Over Troubled Water, Digital photograph. 1980. Photograph, Manukau Research Library.

and a connector of people. As equally its connects the Mangere Bridge Township with Onehunga. It’s the quickest pedestrian route between the two centres and is also part of the Regional Walking and Cycling Network.

The borders of three Local Council Boards meet just a few hundred metres west of the bridge – Puketapapa, Maungakiekie-Tāmaki, and Mangere-Otahuhu. [fig. 1-10] Two of these communities share a border that cuts through the bridge itself, which only helps to emphasise how important the bridge is as a connector of communities.

The areas on each side of the bridge, whilst they share a border, are distinct. The communities on the Northern side of the bridge [fig. 1-8] are made up of people who are older, whiter, and wealthier Photographer than those on the Southern side of the harbour.17 The Mangere- unknown, Old Mangere Otahuhu side has the region’s youngest median age (27.4) and Bridge ca 1980, c1980. Black and white photograph, Manukau 17 “Demographic Report Card - Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board - Research Library. State of Auckland | Auckland Council,” State of Auckland | Auckland Council,

18 19 [fig. 1-10] Mangere Bridge highlighted within Chapter 2 surrounding Auckland Local Boards, 2013. Multiple media Collecting Stories This chapter will outline the processes I used to engage with Mangere Bridge communities through memory collection. Stories have been collected in a variety of ways from conversations to recorded histories. People have been alerted to my project through onsite projects and from help from the local media. My drawing process started from historic images to imagined views through to drawing onto the site itself. highest Pasifika population (58%).18 Yet both communities meet The processes were an important part of this project. It has, on the bridge, use the bridge to travel, for recreation, to fish, to importantly, involved the collection of oral histories. Unlike typi- spend time with family, to watch the sun set while eating fish ‘n’ cal collections, the interview, transcription, and archiving are not chips or KFC. It is the harbour that keeps these communities the final piece of work. The oral histories I have collected have apart but the bridge that connects them. been used as form drivers for my design. I have designed posters and placed them on the old bridge in order to collect anecdotes This chapter has discussed the history of the area around the and feelings about the bridge. I have also used drawing to help Old Mangere Bridge, it has outlined milestones and dates and the me ascertain the research paths I should follow. These processes movements of large groups of people, but it has not discussed combined have all led to my final design thesis. the personal and individual stories of the people that have lived in the area for generations, the tangata whenua, and the newcomers The following outlines the different research methods I’ve used that now call the area home. These stories of family and friends, within this project, as well as the benefits and challenges associ- of work and play, of joy and tragedy, of human connection will ated with each. The communities using the old bridge are diverse be told in the next chapter. and this has required a bricolage approach to data collection.1 The research methods I’ve used are mostly narrative, and so, the methods outlined below are in the form of a told narrative. This is a story about collecting stories. accessed September 4, 2013, http://stateofauckland.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/ demographic-report-card/maungakiekie-tamaki-local-board-2013/. 18 “Demographic Report Card - - Local Board - 1 Joe L. Kincheloe, “Introduction: The Power of the Bricolage: Expanding State of Auckland | Auckland Council,” State of Auckland | Auckland Council, Research Methods,” in Rigour and Complexity in Educational Research: accessed September 4, 2013, http://stateofauckland.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/ Conceptualizing the Bricolage, Conducting Educational Research (Maidenhead: demographic-report-card/mangere-otahuhu-local-board-2013/. Open University Press, 2004).

20 21 A multitude of tales My story is not an important story. It is not a story that’s been told and retold. It is not a story that has shaped my or anyone else’s Memories of the Old Mangere Bridge have been collected, life. It is not a memory that I dwell on to remember better or throughout this project, on the assertion that different people worse times. My memory of the Old Mangere Bridge is a memory will construct different meanings in different ways from the same that reminds me of family and of a different time. The old bridge phenomenon.2 As people’s memories of the same time or place was never a large part of my life (until now) and yet I still have can differ considerably it has been important to allow for possibly enduring memories of it. If this is the case for me, there must be contradictory statements to be used alongside each other whilst so many more memories out there that need to be recorded. still keeping the memories’ authenticity. Architectural preservation most often safeguards the social mem- Each event or phenomenon can be retold in a multitude of differ- ories of society’s privileged. Historian, Dolores Hayden, writes ent ways. Each story recreates the same space in a different way. what is missing is, “…the history of workers, women, ethnic groups, Each storyteller owns their truth and their knowledge. Each sto- and the poor…”.5 The Old Mangere Bridge is not a structure ryteller’s understanding of his or her experiences, hopes, dreams, that has housed our elite; it is a bridge over a culturally significant and aspirations is what makes their knowledge valid. Honouring piece of water. The bridge is used by a wide variety of people the authenticity of each storyteller’s experiences has become and I want to acknowledge these people’s memories of the area an essential part of the story collection.3 To best understand and and especially acknowledge the iwi who are tied to the whenua contextualise the Old Mangere Bridge’s significance to the people of the area. that have used it, I have needed for them to tell me their stories. By contrast to architectural preservation, oral histories safeguard My experiences, have also become implicit to this inquiry and an the social memories of those who don’t often have a voice. In important research tool. An autobiographical approach has ena- Oral History Theory, Lynn Abrams explains how oral history col- bled points of reflection, exploration, and elucidation and focused lection can be a way to “give a voice to the voiceless, a narrative the research on meaning and experience. So, this research begins to the story-less and power to the marginalised.”6 The collecting with my own story.4 of oral histories has been an important part of my research, it has allowed stories to be recorded that may have otherwise been lost, but it has not been the only way to record the local 2 Luke Feast and Gavin Melles, “Epistemological Positions in Design Research: communities’ stories. A Brief Review of the Literature,” in Connected 2010 (presented at the 2nd International Conference on Design Education, Sydney, Australia: University of New South Wales, 2010), http://www.academia.edu/290579/Epistemological_ Positions_in_Design_Research_A_Brief_Review_of_the_Literature. 3 Rosemary Du Plessis and Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop, “The Ethics of Knowledge 5 Dolores Hayden, “Place Memory and Urban Preservation,” in The Power Production - Pacific Challenges.,”International Social Science Journal 60, no. 195 of Place : Urban Landscapes as Public History (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, (2009): 109–14. 1995), 44–78. 4 Ibid. 6 Lynn Abrams, Oral History Theory (Routledge, 2010) 154.

22 23 My story I learnt to wear my gumboots. I learnt to talk about fishing. I learnt to agree when people told me how thankful they are to God for My link to the Old Mangere Bridge started when my parents sepa- their many blessings. rated in 1977. Every weekend my sister and I sat in the car with our father listening to his stories, listening to him trying to keep We talked about how when the fishermen first immigrated to a five-year-old child and a one-year-old baby amused. My father New Zealand they didn’t know anybody or have anything to do, tells a good story and we heard a lot of them on that frequent how they went and bought a fishing rod from The Warehouse and trip. The bridge was the connection between our mother in Te filled their days with fishing, how they provided for their families Atatu North and our father in Mangere and, like their relation- and made friends, how they are teaching their sons to fish now. ship, it was disintegrating. Though my father moved away from Auckland our connection was never lost and thinking of this time My onsite conversations aren’t recorded. The unrecorded encoun- my mind wanders to what might have been. How may this story ters allowed me to have more natural conversation; conversations have been told had things been just a little different? And how that accord an intuitive knowledge of the area and that bring are others’ stories different than mine? me closer to the community. I enjoy chatting with the locals on the bridge now. I love hearing the communities’ stories and the Setting-out on my research journey from the starting-point of my knowledge gained through this social engagement is invaluable. own memories has allowed me to place myself firmly within the site. The next step was to move back to site physically to gather What I did learn from this exploration was that my focus had to memories from different times and from different peoples. be on the Old Mangere Bridge itself. Whilst the area surrounding the bridge and how the bridge sits within its surroundings are Onsite conversations important, it is the old bridge itself that will be gone soon and so I turned to the old bridge. Yeah bro, we’re sweet.7 The written record As soon as I had decided on my research topic I started spending time at the Old Mangere Bridge. There were no formal outcomes Completion of the Mangere Bridge: The New Structure I needed to fulfil. Using heuristic enquiry I needed to focus on Which Spans the Manukau Harbour at Onehunga Formally meaning, quality, and experience rather than measurement, quan- Opened by the Prime Minister on Monday Afternoon. The tity, or behaviour. I knew I just had to ‘hang-out’ and talk to the new bridge is 820 ft in length, excluding approaches, and locals. It’s not easy approaching people with the sole intention has a uniform breadth of 50ft. It is built entirely of ferro- of just conversing. I’m a naturally shy person and I worried the concrete, with 20 supporting arches. The height above ‘locals’ wouldn’t want to talk to me.

7 Hannah Alleyne, Traversing Memory Guest Book, Ink & graphite on paper, 2013-2014, Auckland Libraries.

24 25 high-water level varies from 8ft to 16ft. Its cost is within me of the challenges that many in our communities have had to £25,000.8 overcome.

It’s easy to get lost in the old newspapers; there are hundreds of I have taken the guest book with me to various events, since the stories about Mangere Bridge. I found stories about drownings, first exhibition, and asked people to leave a comment. Given a seat stories about motor vehicle collisions, stories about people being and some time, contributors have written some beautiful prose. charged for dumping rubbish and driving under the influence. I read about missing people and found bodies. I read a lot of arti- Social media cles about white men making plans, implementing plans, criticising change, and repairing what they had built. I found very few stories [Your grandfather] worked for a company called Metlabs as of celebration. For those, I needed to collect stories myself. an Industrial Radiographer. The crucial welding needed to be X-rayed for faults before construction. This was done on Guest book the bridge using plutonium encased in lead. Me and Ross worked for the same company for a while. You had to trap a My brothers were given bikes for Christmas, but (since I was film behind the weld, open the ‘Bomb’ and run about thirty a girl) I didn’t quite luck out! So instead I would sneak out feet, take cover for 20 minutes then run back and shut the the smaller bike on weekends while they were out at soccer. thing off and remove the film and develop it.10 This bridge was on my route. It reminds me of freedom and breaking free of people’s expectations.9 Twitter, Facebook, and my family and friends helped spread the word that I was after memories about the old bridge. I received An opportunity arose, in late 2013, for me to exhibit my project stories about them – and myself – that I’d never heard before. to date. I decided rather than focus on showing my work I’d focus on collecting memories of the bridge. I designed and printed a My grandfather and two of my uncles worked as Industrial guest book and set it on a side-table. While the exhibition was Radiographers on the bridge in the mid-1970’s. My parents would not linked to the Old Mangere Bridge, or its communities, several place me in my bassinette in the truck, and drive me over the people chose to share their memories with me. bridge to get me to sleep. My aunty wrote a story on the Mangere Bridge for an Auckland television station magazine programme People shared stories that touched me. Stories of loss, stories (whose name is long forgotten) in 1961. of love, stories that made me laugh, and stories that reminded I had felt connected to the bridge before I started my research. These comments only helped to reiterate that my chosen research 8 “Completion Of The Mangere Bridge: The New Structure Which Spans The site was important. If there were stories in my own family there Manukau Harbour At Onehunga Formally Opened By The Prime Minister On Monday Afternoon.,” New Zealand Herald, June 2, 1915, Papers Past. 9 Hannah Alleyne, Traversing Memory Guest Book, Ink & graphite on paper, 10 Peter Townsend, “Hannah Alleyne’s Facebook Page,” Facebook, October 2013-2014, Auckland Libraries. 16, 2013, https://www.facebook.com/hannah.alleyne.

26 27 [fig. 2-1] Page from Guest Book, I don’t have a strong social media presence and my requests for 2013-2014. Pencil memories amongst my friends and followers returned few memo- and ink on paper, ries other than those about my family and myself. The benefit 297x150mm. of social media here was its ability to connect me with people and organisations I would not have necessarily found otherwise. Stop and share … or just say hello

I’ve spent a lot of hours on this bridge, even in the rain and I haven’t caught anything. Only one small yellowtail and my brother caught two.13 were bound to be untold stories in the families of the people I watched a short documentary about story-collector Brandon who live in the area. Doman.14 Doman founded a storytelling project called The Strangers Project. He sits, with a sign, asking strangers to write A suggestion by Facebook: I might ‘like’ Friends of the Manukau anonymous stories. To date, he has collected over 7,000 stories. Harbour.11 Sounds great. We become ‘friends’ – I post about my project and add a link to my blog. Best research decision I made I felt inspired. It looked so easy. I could do this. because next thing I know I’m contacted by journalist, Tao Lin, from the local paper, the Manukau Courier. Someone who’d seen I designed a sign, I printed and mounted the A1 size sign and sat my post in the Friends of the Manukau Harbour Facebook page on the bridge. had contacted Lin and she wanted to interview me. I’m a white woman sitting on a bridge on a cloudy and windy day. The Manukau Courier is not a publication with a wide readership Very few people walk past – even fewer are fishing. but it is free and read by locals who have it delivered straight to their letterboxes. After my project was published on the front Nobody spoke to me. page, I received countless emails from people wanting to share their memories of the bridge with me.12 And countless more emails suggesting people I should talk to.

11 “Friends of the Manukau Harbour’s Facebook Page,” Facebook, accessed October 18, 2013, https://www.facebook.com/FriendsoftheManukaHarbour. 13 Hannah Alleyne, Traversing Memory Guest Book, Ink & graphite on paper, 12 Tao Lin, “Stories of the Bridge,” Stuff.co.nz, December 19, 2013, sec. Manukau 2013-2014, Auckland Libraries. Courier, http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/manukau-courier/9531338/ 14 “Brandon Doman,” Like Knows Like, accessed December 27, 2013, http:// Stories-of-the-bridge. likeknowslike.com/portfolio/brandon-doman/.

28 29 Stop and share … write a memory a second language, people had a chance to just say “I was here today”.18 People wrote not just to me but also to the other users Retired now, it lazily dreams, of the bridge. On this bridge, this connector of communities, I had monochrome images of those who walked or drove provided another opportunity for the locals to connect. past these broken walls and rails. Treasured memories creep like weeds, Local fishermen helped me hang and change the posters, and as many ghosts lurk within the darkened cracks and seams.15 they did, conversations grew. People approached me and spoke with me, while they hadn’t connected with me when I was sitting I tried again. This time I hung posters with accompanying blank under a sign asking them to speak to me, now people wanted to sheets and felt tips on the bridge. On a Friday afternoon I hung know what I was doing. Why the posters? What was happening four posters on the bridge. I went back to the bridge on Sunday to the bridge? How come I was leaving these posters here for morning – I needed to replace the felt tips I was sure would be people to graffiti? What was going to happen to all the stories? stolen. I didn’t always have answers to people’s questions but it always That Sunday morning was the most exciting moment in my started a conversation. And those conversations, the social engage- research to date. Not only were all the felt tips still there – all ment, once again provided invaluable knowledge. four posters were full of stories. As soon as I could, I was back at the printers ordering more posters. Over the nine days I hung Oral history interviews posters every day and people left almost 250 comments. As I walk across it now, the new bridge and the old bridge, Some talked of the importance of the bridge, some of time spent as I ride across, I see it as a recording memory stick that with family. Mostly, people left just their names and wrote about brings back emotions, brings back things that could have how they love to fish from the bridge. These posters offered the been worse.19 opportunity for people to share their voice. Here, in a community where the mean household income16 is just two-thirds (67%) of Meanwhile, I had been organising oral history interviews from Auckland’s mean household income17 and where English is often connections made through the article in the Manukau Courier.

15 Robert Taylor, “Childhood Chuckles,” in Driftwood: Another Voice (Xlibris, I learnt that tying people down to an interview time could be 2012). hard work. 16 “Demographic Report Card - Māngere-Ōtāhuhu Local Board - State of Auckland | Auckland Council,” State of Auckland | Auckland Council, accessed September 4, 2013, http://stateofauckland.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/ demographic-report-card/mangere-otahuhu-local-board-2013/. 18 Hannah Alleyne, Traversing Memory: Posters of Collected Memories, Ink on 17 “Household Income by Region,” Statistics New Zealand, accessed April paper, January 10, 2014, Auckland Libraries. 26, 2014, http://nzdotstat.stats.govt.nz/wbos/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TABL 19 Ropata Selwyn, interview by Hannah Alleyne, digital recording, January ECODE7464#. 28, 2014, Auckland Libraries.

30 31 [fig. 2-2] Helen de Faria-Johns, all through the car and for weeks she was terrified they were Hannah Alleyne hanging going to be pulled over by the police and accused of driving drunk. memory-collection posters, 2014. Digital Two people told me how they’d taken family urns to the bridge photograph. and sprinkled family members’ ashes into the water below. Another two talked to me of their spiritual links with the bridge and the area, how their families had been here since Māori first came to New Zealand, and of the wars fought, won, and lost for the area.

I learnt about the snowball effect of collecting histories. Approaching one person who would then mention several other people, who lead me to several more people, brought me to a point that I had to say, no more interviews. Not yet anyway. Auckland Libraries will include the oral histories I’ve recorded within their heritage library – it would be nice to add some more I learnt that often, when introduced through someone else, par- once this project is complete. ticipants believe they don’t have anything valuable to add to the research. This is very rarely the case. I learnt that interview transcription takes hours.

After each interview, I felt incredibly humbled to have had the I learnt that people want to share their stories – and they want honour to record the participant’s memories. There were such to hear other people’s stories. I learnt that given the opportunity a huge range of stories and experiences shared. and the means, everyone has a story to share.

I spoke to a man born in 1916, just one year after the bridge was This project has given the local community the opportunity to completed, about travelling over the bridge in the 1920’s on horse share their stories and to have their stories retold. The voices of and cart and about returning to the bridge after WWII. He had the local communities are not loud voices – they are not voices known the first person to ever cross the bridge, in 1915, before that are usually heard. Few of them will ever have their name on construction was even complete. Apparently he couldn’t wait and a plaque commemorating their great deeds, despite what many he jumped the last bit of gap; horse, buggy, and all. of them have accomplished with so little.

One woman told me how she’d won a bottle of whiskey in a raffle When I stand on the old bridge, as dilapidated as it is, watching one evening. Then travelling home over the old bridge, with the the water move beneath me and the clouds move above me, the Bailey bridge over the top, it was so bumpy the whiskey bounced bridge feels so secure – a mainstay in an ever-changing world. But right off the back seat, onto the floor, and smashed. The smell was looking through this history and the images it is obvious that the Old Mangere Bridge is just another iteration and the tides and

32 33 prevailing wind are the only things that stay the same. My intent then was to create a way to illustrate the iterations in a way that Chapter 3 attempts to speak to those who have created them. Drawing A Mnemonic Device

Drawing a space produces an understanding of it. Each line put to paper creates a neural pathway that gives us a new under- standing of a space and also serves as a marker to help retain the memory of it. With this method of meaning-making as part of my usual practice, I began a series of drawings inspired by an essay by Jeff Parks. First drawings

In A Regard for Pristine Loveliness, Park shows how he set out to, not so much recreate, but recapture images of the landscape taken by photographer Henry Wright in the 1890’s.20 So, using historical images I sourced from Auckland Libraries, I set out to recapture the landscape of the Mangere Bridge.

The historical photographs taken of the Manukau Harbour can never be recreated, the landscape is far too different now, but I could try to recapture the same view. I needed to find a way to absorb myself within the history of the area as well as link its history to the present day through site-responsive work.

I started with the first photograph of the area I could source. Taken around 1875 looking at Mangere Mountain from Onehunga. I first drew the historic image and then how the area appears now. [fig. 3-1 and 3-2]

20 Geoff Park, “A Regard for Pristine Loveliness,” in Theatre Country : Essays on Landscape & Whenua (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006), 206–20.

34 35 [fig. 3-1] I did the same with an image from 1913, once again using Mangere Mangere Mountain Mountain as my point of reference. [figs. 3-3 and 3-4] from Onehunga in1875, 2013. Graphite on Lastly, I used a photograph of the new motorway bridge being paper., 297x210mm. built in 1980 and contrasted it with the motorway bridge as it stands today. [fig. 3-5 and 3-6]

This exercise was harder than I imagined it would be, it was dif- ficult to find the same point of capture. But drawing these images brought about a better knowledge of the area and how it has changed over the past 140 years. Each line, each contour drawn, brought a clearer understanding of the area, its weather, its water, its past, and its present. Projections

Thinking about the theory of how built structures project memo- ries I decided to take my drawings a step further. Once again using both historical photographs and my own photographs, I printed the images onto acetate and projected them onto a large roll of paper. [fig. 3-7]

Just like memory recollection, these large-scale drawings projected the past into the present, blurring the edges of time. [fig. 3-8 to 3-13] It is the drawer’s and storyteller’s prerogative, to include what they want remembered, draw attention to what they want highlighted, and omit what they want erased. In these projection drawings, the darkness of one bridge illustrates what has already been destroyed; the negative space highlights what will soon be lost. Particular attention was paid to the hatching of the sea and sky. They begin to reflect one another — the only constant in [fig. 3-2] this ever-changing environment. Mangere Mountain from Onehunga in 2013, 2013. Graphite on paper., 297x210mm.

36 37 [fig. 3-3] [fig. 3-5] View along the first Mangere Motorway Mangere Bridge Bridge in 1980, 2013. towards Mangere in Graphite on paper, 1913, 2013. Graphite 297x210mm.. on paper, 297x210mm.

[fig. 3-4] View along the Old [fig. 3-6] Mangere Bridge Mangere motorway towards Mangere in bridge in 2013, 2013. 2013, 2013. Graphite Graphite on paper, on paper, 297x210mm. 297x210mm.

38 39 [fig. 3-7] Drawing such large images allowed me to immerse myself within Julianna Satchell-Deo, the images. The past was projected onto me, and I took from those Hannah Alleyne drawing projections what I felt needed repeating, and omitted what I saw large-scale projected image as superfluous. These drawings supported a deeper unspoken and , 2013. Digital photograph. tacit understanding of the site and its changes over time. Precedent

Within Pallasmaa’s theory that there are three ways the built structure serves as a mnemonic device was the idea that the built structure inspires us and stimulates us to remember and to imagine.1

As a spatial designer, and especially as a designer of a memory- place, I need to ask, what should be brought to mind here? What should be remembered? What could be imagined? designed to speak about disintegration of structure, I think read To help me make these design decisions I looked at works by that way, it certainly helps me see possibilities for my project. artists and designers for inspiration and four, in particular, caught [figs. 3-16 & 3-17] my attention. Rietveld Landscapes are a design firm based in Amsterdam. Their installation, Pretty Vacant, is a suspended screen, Based over the water, the Old Mangere Bridge is crumbling and which is a reversal of a previous work, where we are presented disintegrating as it is weathered by wind, water, and time and as with the negative spaces of a model city. [figs. 3-14 & 3-15] I the sandcastles depict, with suburban homes where so many of imagined what effects negative spaces could create when reacting our dearest memories are held, so are the memories of the bridge. with the water and weather around them. Do they shimmer, do they sing, do they float, do they sway with the wind or the tide? The Snow, by Tokujin Yoshioka, offers an atmosphere of quiet calm. Feathers fly around a 15 metre-long tank. The exhibition aimed Chad Wright, like Rietveld Landscapes, has used models of the to rethink the unconscious way we sense nature, it did not try to built form to create an installation piece. In Master Plan, Wright re-create nature but suggest a memory of snow. [figs. 3-18 & 3-19] examines the symbolism of the mass-produced tract house in American suburbia. Whilst I understand this piece was never Understanding this, I knew I didn’t want to simply create an image of the old bridge in order for people to remember it. This 1 Juhani Pallasmaa, “Space, Place, Memory, and Imagination: The Temporal installation made it very clear to me that it was the memories Dimension of Existential Space,” in Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and of the bridge I needed to concentrate on and illuminate – not Landscape (New York; London: Routledge, 2009) 19-41. the bridge itself.

40 41 [fig. 3-8] [fig. 3-10] Old Mangere Bridge Old Mangere Bridge with Bailey bridge in from Onehunga 1980, 2013. Graphite Wharf in 1945, 2013. on paper, 1240 x Graphite on paper, 840mm. 1235 x 840mm.

[fig. 3-11] [fig. 3-9] Old Mangere Bridge Looking South along the from under the new Old Mangere Bridge in Mangere Motorway 2013, 2013. Graphite Bridge in 2013, 2013. on paper, 1440 x Graphite on paper, 840mm. 1505 x 840mm.

42 43 [fig. 3-12] The first Mangere Drawing into site Bridge in 1913, 2013. Graphite on paper, The start of a conversation is like a depth sounding. An introduc- 1220 x 840mm. tion is the first sound – the testing of the waters. If all is safe, the conversation begins, like radar signals being sent and received. I saw echoes in the conversations I had and within the stories people left me. Echoes across time as stories were repeated again and again. Echoes across the harbour as patterns began to emerge within the larger narrative.

I started to draw the story echoes as lines – each line a repeti- tion of the one before, but each one, slightly different. Collecting memories had been time consuming and I needed to move back into site and back to drawing. I needed to look at how I could draw what was on the bridge, what had been there, and to try to imagine what could be.

[figs. 3-14 & 3-15] Rietveld Landscapes, Pretty Vacant, 2013. Foam.

[fig. 3-13] Looking toward the Onehunga Wharf across Old Mangere Bridge in 2013, 2013. Graphite on paper, 1265 x 840mm.

44 45 My first step back into site was to look at what is constant on the harbour. In my previous drawings I had looked at the clouds and water and now I turned to the wind and wind patterns. [fig. 3-20] The wind seems to gather momentum as it travels through the harbour, towards the inlet. The bitter cold sou’wester is the prevailing wind on the bridge. I wanted to portray the way it whips over the water, slows for land and the bridges, and then speeds up again.

One of the interesting effects about being on the Old Mangere Bridge is how its low elevation connects you with the surround- ing environment. The bridge, the water, the mangroves, and the land have equal visual influence. Standing near one end of the bridge, the mangroves are closer, the water is closer, the aroma [figs. 3-16 & 3-17] of the mud is closer than the other end of the bridge. I shifted Master Plan Chad Wright, , 2013. Sand. my focus towards the space between the Mangere Bridges. [figs. 3-21 and 3-22]

To move back onto the bridge, I imagined myself, back in my [figs. 3-18 & 3-19] father’s Vauxhall, kneeling up to peer through the window towards The Snow Tokujin Yoshioka, , 2010. Feathers and glass. the new bridge under construction. In this autobiographical draw- ing my view – and the boundaries of the drawing – are confined by surrounding built structures to the north and the east. The cement silos and the port limit my view to the north. The almost completed new motorway bridge limits my view to the east. Visible, however, is the gap in the bridge (waiting to be finished) where I can peak through. [fig. 3-23]

These drawings, among others, allowed me to move away from collecting stories to being able to use those stories. I was begin- ning to see how the storylines could be developed into drawn lines, but also, that there was something missing in the drawings. They were predominantly from a plan and elevation perspective. I wondered how I could develop these drawings into the spatial intervention I needed.

46 47 [fig. 3-20] Prevailing sou’wester over harbour, land, and Mangere Bridges. Hannah Alleyne, Untitled, 2014. Graphite on paper, 420 x 297mm.

[fig. 3-22] Aerial view of relationship between mangroves and between Mangere Bridges. Hannah Alleyne, Water Between Bridges from Nexux of Mangroves, 2014. Graphite on paper, 420 x 297mm.

[fig. 3-21] Aerial view of mangroves between Mangere Bridges. Hannah Alleyne, Mangroves, 2014. Graphite on paper, 420 x 297mm.

[fig. 3-23] A child’s view in 1978 from the Old Mangere Bridge. Hannah Alleyne, View from the Car, 2014. Graphite on paper, 420 x 297mm.

48 49 [fig. 3-25] I took my drawings into site, discovering that drawing is not a Drawing on Old two-dimensional exercise. I drew echo lines out from the bridge’s Mangere Bridge site. foundations and then from the holes left by core samples taken Hannah Alleyne, Untitled to test for structural integrity. [figs. 3-24 to 3-27] , 2014. Charcoal on concrete.. Each line I drew was a retracing of the line before it yet every additional line was a little different. This exercise illustrated to me that with each retelling, whether that be of a drawn line or a memory, the story not only changes (just a little) but perhaps more importantly becomes bigger, more visible, more memorable. This shift into site, this new connection with the texture of the old bridge, allowed me to move forward into making some initial models and placing them in site.

[fig. 3-24] [fig. 3-26] Detail of drawing on Detail of drawing on Old Mangere Bridge Old Mangere Bridge site. site. Hannah Alleyne, Hannah Alleyne, Untitled, 2014. Untitled, 2014. Charcoal on concrete. Charcoal on concrete.

50 51 [fig. 3-27] Drawing on Old Material testing started early in my research, predominantly con- Mangere Bridge site. crete because it is the main construction material used in the Hannah Alleyne, Old Mangere Bridge. Using several kinds of premix I poured wet Untitled , 2014. cement into form-sets of varying depths, and without form-sets, to Charcoal on concrete. investigate the differences between the formed concrete once set. Then using scalpels, Stanley knives, and an electric etcher I turned the concrete slabs into canvases for both freeform drawings and more structured line drawings. [figs. 3-28 & 3-29]

After the success of collecting memories through the large posters on the bridge and further thinking about the echoes of conversa- tion, I turned from the rigid constraints of concrete towards found objects, more malleable materials where people could leave their own mark, and sound as a material.

Looking at found objects, I took small finds I’d collected over the past year and set them in resin. Whilst I enjoyed the aesthetics of

[figs. 3-28 & 3-29] Drawing into concrete. Hannah Alleyne, Untitled, 2013. Concrete, 300 x 300mmr.

Materials and ideas

Early in this project it seemed obvious that people’s stories would be inscribed in some form. Robert Sullivan’s Kawe Reo on the steps of Auckland Central Library was an easily accessible prec- edent. I sought cultural guidance and was advised that any stories dealing with whenua were taonga. To reproduce these stories in any way that allowed for people to step on them or over them would breach tikanga. Secondly, text seemed too overt a way to produce and replicate stories and memories. Text creates an explicit message whilst I wanted for people to create and remem- ber their own memories.

52 53 [fig. 3-31] Conceptual drawing, 2014. Multimedia.

[fig. 3-30] Preserved objects, 2014. Found objects, resin, glass, 70 x 15mm eachr.

the small bottles and the preserved found objects I didn’t believe these could be transferred to site in a meaningful way. [fig. 3-30]

In one of several design iterations I considered installing a number of vertical pipes into each side of the harbour. The pipes would be of different sizes and different materials – representing the differ- ent communities that have used the bridge over its hundred years. I thought that as the wind hit the pipes they would sound. Each pipe offering a different voice depending on its size, its material- ity, and the amount of water in the pipe from the changing tide.

The pipes would call to each other, across the harbour, retelling the stories, echoing conversations. The installation would illustrate the countless stories that have been told about the bridge in its, almost, one-hundred years. It would call across the harbour and through time in a continuous conversation, signifying the voices of those living and of those lost. [figs. 3-31 and 3-32]

I purchased pipe of varying sizes and materials and took them [fig. 3-32] to site. Whilst the pipes did make a sound it was not enough to Conceptual drawing, 2014. Multimedia.

54 55 be heard over the traffic on the motorway so I turned instead to the idea of malleable materials.

Copper is malleable, easily obtainable, and being an industrial material fits well within the surroundings of the Manukau Harbour inlet. Copper is also a semi-precious metal reflecting the impor- tance of the memories related to the bridge as well as literally reflecting the people and environment itself. I made small-scale maquettes, drawing on copper sheets with cut lines, pressure, and heat. [figs. 3-33 to 3-37] [figs. 3-34 & 3-35] I made larger scale maquettes and took these onto site. I wrapped Initial testing of copper as a suitable material for installation. the copper around different parts of the bridge and along its path Untitled, 2014. Copper, 165mm diameter.

[figs. 3-36 & 3-37] Test drawings with heat. Untitled, 2014. Copper, 350mm diameter.

[fig. 3-33] Initial testing of copper as a suitable material for installation. Untitled, 2014. Copper, 117mm diameter.

56 57 [fig. 3-40] questioning how the material related to the bridge and to the Material testing in situ people who use it. [figs. 3-38 to 3-41] Untitled, 2014. Copper.

Taking the copper maquettes on site illuminated several things that would aid me in making some final design decisions. Firstly, sitting the maquettes flush to the ground and to the parapets made them barely noticeable on such a large structure but once noticed they were difficult to ignore. Reflecting the surrounding light the copper maquettes shone but they did not reflect the viewer. The more closely the copper was wrapped to the texture of the bridge the more it lost its reflective quality. I wanted, at least at first, for the viewer to be able to see themselves in the work — to understand that it is their communities’ memories that are being illustrated.

One of the wonderful things about copper based metals is their patina. The weathering illustrates the passing of time. The metal,

[figs. 3-38 & 3-39] Material testing in situ Untitled, 2014. Copper.

[fig. 3-41] Material testing in situ Untitled, 2014. Copper.

58 59 like the Old Mangere Bridge itself, offers a materialisation of the The intent of the Traversing Memory project is to mark the passing course of time through its visible change in colour and texture. of the bridge’s 100 years as significant to the people who use it. The brass will reflect within it the people who stop to look as I needed a material that would weather but that would also allow well as the environment around them, linking them to the instal- the viewer to see themselves within the work. Closely related to lation and to their extended environment. copper is brass. Brass being lighter in colour, more reflective, and being a harder metal would be able to be wrapped around the bridge without taking on the structure’s texture.

Brass is a common material in maritime areas and is regularly used for the marking of remembrance. Brass plaques are traditional mnemonic devices marking the places of our dead, recalling the deeds of leaders, and commemorating the opening of impor- tant structures. The Old Mangere Bridge does not have a brass plaque to remember its builder, its engineer, or the placing of its foundation stone. There is no plaque to mark the events, losses, celebrations, or peoples of the area. Traversing Memory will go some way towards providing that remembrance.

Each brass marker would become a line in a larger story. The linear nature of the final installation would mark the lines of conversations and the linear histories of the area and its people.

This project will not stand alone. On 15 November 2014 the art event and exhibition Other Waters: Art on the Manukau will open at Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts. Other Waters focuses on our connec- tion with the waters of Tāmaki Makaurau. Whilst the exhibition will show through the summer, an event based around the Manukau Harbour will take place from 28 to 30 November. Traversing Memory will sit alongside other works by artists: Dianna Brindsen; Eu Jin Chua; Rebecca Ann Hobbs; Local Time; Janine Randerson; Lisa Reihana; A. D Schierning; Nick Spratt; Sarah Treadwell; and Ruth Watson drawing attention to the area’s history and its waters.

60 61 [3-43] Placement Conceptual drawing, 2014. Pencil & ink on Starting from where I imagine I waited in my father’s car, I cast a paper, 210 x 297mm glance at the new motorway bridge, towards the space that was between. A first mark on the bridge. A line of site from 1978 brought back to today. [fig. 3-42]

I imagine how, in 1915, Billy Bachurst couldn’t wait for the bridge to be completed. He was busy. He had things to do, maybe people to see or produce to sell. In 1915 Billy Bachurst jumped the last gap in the bridge; horse, trap, and all.2 [fig. 3-43] [3-42] Conceptual drawing, 2014. Pencil & ink on paper, 210 x 297mm 2 Barry Shaw, “Mangere Bridge,” January 8, 2014. Refer Appendix B

62 63 [3-44] [3-45] Conceptual drawing, Conceptual drawing, 2014. Pencil & ink on 2014. Pencil & ink on paper, 210 x 297mm. paper, 210 x 297mm

In 1992 a family came and sat around their package of fish ‘n’ chips. In 1983 a man sat with his back against the bridge, trying to hide They felt the wind blowing, fed the seagulls their left overs, and from the beating sun in the shade of the parapet, while he waited watched the sun disappear behind the Manukau Heads.3 [fig. 3-45] for a fish to bite. He looked out across the bridge towards the water. In 1984 he did the same. In 1985 again. In 1986 his son 3 Hannah Alleyne, Traversing Memory: Posters of Collected Memories, Ink on did the same. [fig. 3-44] paper, January 10, 2014, Auckland Libraries.

64 65 [3-46] [3-47] Conceptual drawing, Conceptual drawing, 2014. Pencil & ink on 2014. Pencil & ink on paper, 210 x 297mm paper, 210 x 297mm

Every week, in 2011, an elderly man seeking some respite from his wife in his long retirement, sat here with his son. Every week, In 2005 two young lovers held hands, took acid, touched each in 2012, an elderly man seeking some respite from his wife in his other, and talked into the night about their dreams and aspira- long retirement, sat here with his son. Every week, in 2013, an tions.4 [fig. 3-46] elderly man seeking some respite from his wife in his long retire- ment, sat here with his son. In 2014, when he can, an elderly man 4 Hannah Alleyne, Traversing Memory: Guest Book, Ink & graphite on paper, seeking some respite from his wife in his long retirement sits here 2014 2013, Auckland Libraries.. and remembers his son. [fig. 3-47]

66 67 [3-48] [3-49] Conceptual drawing, Conceptual drawing, 2014. Pencil & ink on 2014. Pencil & ink on paper, 210 x 297mm paper, 210 x 297mm

On a warm night in 1977 a little girl fell asleep in the back seat In 1926 Margaret Armstrong laid her coat, hat, and bag on the of the family car. “Lulled by the moon into a hazy slumber; drunk bridge and stepped into the ebbing tide beneath her, praying the from the day’s folly, sedated by a scent unknown.”5 [fig. 3-48] water would take her with it. Her prayer was answered.6 [fig. 3-49]

5 Nina Tapu, “Bridge-O-Lage,” May 8, 2014. Refer Appendix B. 6 “Lost And Found,” Evening Post, October 26, 1926, Papers Past.

68 69 [3-50] [3-52] Conceptual drawing, Conceptual drawing, 2014. Pencil & ink on 2014. Pencil & ink on paper, 210 x 297mm paper, 210 x 297mm

In 1957 a cyclist took their second commute of the day across the length of the bridge. They kept as close to the curb as they could to avoid being clipped by the lorries on their way home from market. [fig. 3-50]

In 1965 ten young men lined up, facing the Onehunga Wharf, sea gulling, looking for an opportunity to earn some money.7 [fig. 3-51]

7 .Hannah Alleyne, Traversing Memory: Guest Book, Ink & graphite on paper, 2014 2013, Auckland Libraries.

In 2002, a family stood, heads bowed in prayer (amen) and the ashes of another loved one are committed to the waters below.8 [fig. 3-52] [3-51] Conceptual drawing, 2014. Pencil & ink on 8 Janet Presland, interview by Hannah Alleyne, digital recording, January 20, paper, 210 x 297mm 2014, Auckland Libraries.

70 71 [3-53] Conceptual drawing, My design sits on and wraps around the bridge, a retelling of linear 2014. Pencil & ink on histories. Each line is a retelling of a memory or an iteration of paper, 210 x 297mm a story brought together, offering a new narrative. Parts of the installation will be retained onsite, only to weather or disappear, other parts will be removed to be archived and exist outside the site. My intention is that the Traversing Memory installations will operate as, not only mnemonic devices, but also representations of how memories are altered, lost, or retained over time.

Like the drawings that have helped form this final work, the installations are lineal in nature. Each line traverses not only the time between the memory it records but also the Old Mangere Bridge itself.

I want for people to be able to imprint their own stories upon the work. However, for those that would like to know the prec- edent of the stories illustrated booklets were available at the Other Waters event.

The theoretical positioning of this work, within theories of memory in architecture, led to my pursuit of research through oral history. Like artists John Kuo Wei Tchen and Charles Lei in their respec- tive works Brass Valley and New York Chinatown History Project it was important to generate a methodology which engaged both the social and material components of the built structure as mnemonic device.

Traversing Memory’s final iteration attempts to illustrate the tem- poral nature of memory by its gradual degradation, mirroring the disintegration of the Old Mangere Bridge and its importance as a connector of communities and the moana.

In 2014, a woman stood here and surveyed the area, wondering where they would build another bridge. In the same year, in the same spot, another woman stood here collecting stories. [fig. 3-53]

72 73 that follow, and important as real voices sitting alongside the Conclusion final design.

The Old Mangere Bridge has changed from an engineering marvel The new Mangere Bridge is still in its design phase. Architects, that enabled travel across the Mangere Inlet to a busy piece of engineers, and local artists have been appointed to design and motorway connecting to its airport. The bridge, a construct the new bridge. The unnamed new bridge will be built destination in itself, offers local communities a place of recreation to the east of the Old Mangere Bridge ending near the old bridge’s and restoration. abutments. Curving away from the old bridge, the new bridge will not rise much higher than the old bridge, ensuring ease of Each visit to the old bridge creates new memories and reinforces use for pedestrians and cyclists, and will include several bays to old ones. With the building of a new pedestrian bridge in 2015 be used for fishing. and the demolition of the Old Mangere Bridge memories held by generations of people will be destroyed. The New Mangere Bridge is another iteration in a long line of Manukau Harbour crossings. No matter how the new bridge is Given that each phenomenon, each experience, is retained in designed, whether the communities’ memories and stories are a unique way by each person; given that many people hold a included in its design or not, the new bridge will act as a mnemonic memory or memories of the old bridge; that these memories device simply because it is there and fulfils the same functions. have been shared with others, retold to whanau, friends, and strangers; given all this, there are an unfathomable number of The old bridge provides a transportation route and a place of memories being held of the bridge and by the bridge. To date, the recreation. Is it a function of the bridge to act as mnemonic device bridge has been a scaffold supporting memories of itself. With its or does it act as a reminder incidentally? Certainly, it was never destruction, the Traversing Memory project will serve to retain designed as a mnemonic device but my research has shown that and foster some of those memories. the bridge acts in that capacity now. Is it therefore the responsibil- ity of the designers of the new bridge to ensure that that bridge I have had the opportunity to record the voices of the often too continues to retell the communities’ memories? Or is it up to voiceless. Using several forms of memory collection has allowed the communities around it to provide their own repositories that for a more diverse and inclusive memory collection. The oral keep telling the stories that are important to them? Regardless histories I recorded are housed within Auckland Libraries’ Oral of one’s philosophical beliefs on whether historical preservation History Collection available throughout the Auckland region. The should be state-led or community-led, design that allows local library is not a mnemonic device but as a memory repository it communities to tell their own stories will enable them to do so will maintain the collected memories for those that seek them. should they choose. The new bridge, as another harbour-crossing, And whilst the collecting of memories was an integral part of will act as mnemonic device – how effectively it will work in that this project, the archiving of them was not. The archiving was function will depend on the importance that function is given not incidental but important to the community and generations within its design.

74 75 Like the old bridge, I want my work to be a connector of com- Those who crossed over from one bank to another on this munities. It is the connection that I would like highlighted in the bridge, crossed also from one day to another, crossing time final design. Physical traversing lines illustrate the thousands of as well as the spaces under the piers.1 journeys across the bridge. Lines built into the thoroughfare, extending beyond the physical structure of the bridge will highlight I would like to think that Traversing Memory does the same for the bridge’s main purpose – to connect communities – while the Old Mangere Bridge; at once, enabling us to retain memories illustrating the many crossings that have already been taken. from the past whilst creating new memories to take with us to the future. My work, installed on the Old Mangere Bridge, will be destroyed when the bridge is demolished. As equally, a permanent installa- tion that illustrates the connection through stories being retold would also be an appropriate addition to the new bridge. A sound work, of looped waiata and stories, would allow for memories to be continued through further generations, connecting those that have been with them yet to come.

The Manukau Harbour has been a place of sustenance for hun- dreds of years, both physical and spiritual. Anecdotally, I have heard of diminishing kaimoana stocks and with a planned increase in wastewater overflows into the harbour there will be no improve- ment in the foreseeable future.

Each storyteller that shared a memory with me shared their own knowledge and truth. Hundreds of experiences, hopes, dreams, and aspirations were shared with me. It is my hope that the stories I chose to illustrate honour the authenticity of each and every one of the memories that were shared.

The lineal nature of my process drawings led me to the final linear markings on the Old Mangere Bridge. Like the many people’s sto- ries they illustrate, these lines traverse across both the structure and across time, reminding us of stories told and evoking new memories. Margaret Mahy’s bridge builder built one bridge where, 1 Margaret Mahy, “The Bridge Builder,” in The Door in the Air and Other Stories (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1988), 25.

76 77 buffeted the water, guests, and visitors; our kaumatua’s karakia Addendum became almost a whisper, lost amongst the wind and the rain.

My intention for this project was for the work to allow the local Light refractions and sound from the installation activated small community a mnemonic device for their memories of the Old parts of the bridge. The lines of brass shone in the sunlight, reflect- Mangere Bridge and to create new memories for them to foster. ing the environment and the people stopping to study them. As I am very pleased to see my intentions realised. the light changed throughout the day, so did the light reflecting off the brass markers – at times almost blinding, at others golden. Echoing my time on the bridge over the past two years, sitting In the gale winds of ‘Other Waters’ pieces marking time spent beside my work evoked very little interaction from the public between father and son were blown about, at times flailing in the but installing the work, working on the bridge, created many air like ribbons of light, whilst creating a cacophony like crashing conversations. People were interested in my work and still keen thunder. [figs. A-1 to A-3] to share their memories of the Old Mangere Bridge.

The communities of people using the Old Mangere Bridge are interested in what is happening to ‘their’ bridge. Many people stopped to ask me what I was doing. Some presumed I was an Auckland Council worker installing safety measures, others pre- sumed I was strengthening the bridge. Others wanted to share their memories of the bridge with me.

People wanted to know what each mark represented. They were interested to know that each disjointed mark was a conversation and a memory they could relate to. That the work as a whole [fig. A-1] acted as a mnemonic device and represented some of the com- The work against the munity’s memories, inspired people to share more memories of parapet, signifying a the bridge. father bringing his son fishing, shows how the brass is The working name of the event, Other Waters: Art on the Manukau, wrapped around and of which my work was a part, was ‘Water and Weather’, and the connected to the installation of my work was very dependent on those two things. site. The vertical lines The days of the event were windy and wild with coats and hats are reflected in the horizontal lines below. flapping around in the wind. The wind seemed to gather momen- Hannah Alleyne. tum as it travelled across the harbour. The bitter-cold sou’wester Traversing Memory, 2014. Brass..

78 79 [fig. A-2] The long line showing Walking the length of the bridge there are twelve works illustrating cyclists’ travels along different memories. And like memories themselves, some pieces the length of the are very easy to find, others, almost invisible until the light hits bridge glows red as it reflects the setting them at just the right angle. To aid with the discovery of each sun. installation I produced a booklet (below) for the exhibition, relay- Hannah Alleyne. ing an idea of each memory, and a small synopsis of the reason Traversing Memory, behind the project. 2014. Brass..

[fig. A-3] In the gale-force winds, a work illustrating the loss of a son, blows in the wind. Hannah Alleyne, Traversing Memory, 2014. Brass.

80 81 People walked along the bridge, intrigued by the brass markings, creating their own memories, and then walked along again with the booklet filling in some gaps and further fostering the memories the work illustrates. Since the exhibition, the booklet has become a further mnemonic device, reminding us of the exhibition, the bridge, and the initial memories. Readers who never saw the exhibition have relayed how the book acted as a mnemonic device for their own childhood memories of the bridge and that through reading the book they could imagine themselves as part of each of the illustrated memories.

This further connector emphasises that there are many ways we can use spatial design to foster and maintain memories of the built structure but also that my intention to foster community memories was actualised. What were personal and sometimes individual memories have now been imagined by a large com- munity of people. The memories are now shared and fostered by a community.

The installation’s design is not meant to last forever but its abil- ity to maintain any longevity is only as strong as the connection between it and the bridge. The closely wrapped bronze followed the linear nature of the bridge, its reflections exposing the view- ers to not only their own reflections but also a line in a larger story — the brass markers, visual conversations and reflections of the area, the people and links to the extended environment. Traversing Memory’s final iteration illustrated the temporal nature of memory by its gradual degradation, mirroring the disintegration of the Old Mangere Bridge and its importance as a connector of communities and the moana.

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McEwan, Ann. Proposed Onehunga Foreshore Reclamation Presland, Janet. Interview by Hannah Alleyne. Digital recording, Project. Cultural Impact Assessment. Ngati Te Ata, Te Akitai, and January 20, 2014. Auckland Libraries. Ngati Tamaoho, 2011. https://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/ SiteCollectionDocuments/aboutcouncil/hearings/hearingrptone- Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time. Everyman’s Library 250. hungaforeshoreatt1420111213.pdf. London: Everyman, 2001.

86 87 Scott, Dick. Fire on the Clay: The Pakeha Comes to West Auckland. Auckland: Southern Cross, 1979. Appendix A:

Selwyn, Ropata. Interview by Hannah Alleyne. Digital recording, Ethics Approval January 28, 2014. Auckland Libraries. UREC REGISTRATION NUMBER: 2013-1047 Shaw, Barry. “Mangere Bridge,” January 8, 2014. This study has been approved by the UNITEC Research Ethics Shaw, George. Interview by Hannah Alleyne. Digital recording, Committee from 9 August 2013 to 9 August 2014. January 17, 2014. Auckland Libraries.

Tapu, Nina. “Bridge-O-Lage,” May 8, 2014.

Taylor, Robert. “Childhood Chuckles.” In Driftwood: Another Voice. Xlibris, 2012.

“The Mangere Bridge.” New Zealand Herald, August 10, 1921. Papers Past.

Thompson, Wayne. “Watercare Hits Back over Plan for Overflows.” New Zealand Herald, July 16, 2013, sec. National. http://www. nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10898489.

“TKM | Tāmaki | Te Kahui Mangai.” Accessed May 12, 2013. http:// www.tkm.govt.nz/region/tamaki/.

Townsend, Peter. “Hannah Alleyne’s Facebook Page.” Facebook, October 16, 2013. https://www.facebook.com/hannah.alleyne.

Treib, Marc. “Yes, Now I Remember: An Introduction.” In Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape, x–xv. New York; London: Routledge, 2009.

88 89 Appendix B: Shared Stories and Correspondence

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